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Injured during storms, BWCA campers rescued

Campers in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness were injured by falling trees when storms rolled through the area Monday night and Tuesday morning.

Mark Zup, owner of Zup's Fishing Resort and Canoe Outfitters on Lac La Croix Lake got a call around 3 a.m. Tuesday that two campers had been hit by fallen trees. At first light, he jumped in a boat.

"It's about 26 miles to where that site is into the Boundary Waters. It took us about 35-40 minutes to get there," he said. "Got in there and there was two people we had to get out as soon as we can. It's probably a one in ten year storm."

The St. Louis County Sheriff's Office says 47-year-old Kirk Sanchez and 13-year-old Hayden Toups, both of Louisiana, were injured by trees falling on their tents. Zup took them by boat to a nearby portage where an ambulance drove them to a hospital.

Three women were injured, two seriously, when they were trapped under fallen trees for several hours on Loon Lake, according to the St. Louis County Rescue Squad.

One of the women was airlifted to a Duluth area hospital. Another woman had non-life threatening injuries.

Two campers on Lac La Croix were also injured when trees fell onto their tents.

An official with the U.S. Forest Service said an incident response team will be working with the St. Louis County Sheriff's Office. They'll be surveying camp sites by air, and possibly sending out teams to check on campers on Lac La Croix, Loon Lake and other interior Boundary Waters lakes.